Hands on: Nokia Lumia 800 and 710

Nokia's first Windows Phone 7 handsets come in colours and prices to suit every pocket.

I got my hands on Nokia’s first WP7 offerings at this week’s Australian roadshow and they’re certainly impressive. The Lumia 800 is Nokia’s new flagship smartphone, replicating the look and feel of the slick N9 but running Windows Phone 7.5 Mango. I’ve written about Mango before, running on the Samsung Omnia 7, so I won’t cover too much old ground here. There are a few extra Nokia-only services on there to sweeten the deal, which I’ll get back to in a minute.

At $699 the Lumia 800 is competitively priced with the high-end iPhone and Android competition, but Nokia is also after the mid-range market with a $379 Lumia 710 also running Mango. While it’s only half the price, it’s certainly not only half as good.

The Lumia 710 isn’t as sleek as the 800, it's thicker but a little lighter while offering the same 3.7-inch screen size. They both pack the same single-core 1.4 GHz processor and 512 MB of RAM, which means the 710 doesn’t feel sluggish like some cheap and nasty entry-level Android phones.

One trade-off is that the 710 offers only 8GB of onboard storage as opposed 16GB, and neither has an SD card slot. The Lumia 710 also features a 5MP camera instead of 8MP and smaller battery, offering 7.6 hours of 3G talk time instead of 9.5h. What’s interesting is that the 710 relies on a user-replaceable battery, which heavy users will see as a bonus. I’m a technobogan so I don’t care too much about fashion sense, but I should mention that the 800 is available in black, cyan and magenta. The 710 has a white front but comes with the choice of a black, white, cyan, fushia or yellow back.

Both the 710 and 800 are 14.4 Mbps HSDPA devices but unfortunately neither are quad-band 3G, so you’ll get either an 850 MHz or 900 MHz-compatible device depending on which telco you buy it from. The 800 utilises a sleek polycarbonate unibody design, which I’m told helps with reception but didn’t have the chance to test at the launch. The 800 will be available from all telcos in March, but the 710 will be limited to Optus and Virgin (although Sheeds over at WPDownUnder has confirmed that some retailers will sell an 850 MHz Lumia 710 outright).

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I think releasing a decent entry-level Lumia is a smart move by Nokia, which needs all the help it can get to claw back market share from iOS and Android after giving them a massive head start. The two-model strategy will appeal to punters who want to dip their toe into WP7 as well as businesses wanting to roll out a fleet of WP7 phones but reserve the expensive models for executives.

One key difference between the 800 and the 710 is the display. The 800 employs a 3.7-inch “Clear Black” AMOLED screen, while the 710 opts for “Clear Black” LCD. The “Clear Black” tag basically means that the display utilises a polarised filter on top, which helps with screen glare and viewing angles.

Both the 800 and 710 handle outdoor glare much better than standard AMOLED, plus they offer very good contrast and wide viewing angles. They’re also made of tough Gorilla Glass. Both look much better than the TFT-based first generation Windows Phone 7 handsets and, of the WP7 devices I’ve seen, only the Super AMOLED Samsung Omnia 7 comes close to matching them.

As you would expect the Lumia 800’s AMOLED screen looks a little more vivid but the Lumia 710’s LCD screen looks a little more crisp and offers whiter whites to help with reading contrast. Traditionally I’ve preferred LCD over AMOLED, but AMOLED has come a long way (the best example perhaps being the HD Super AMOLED Galaxy Nexus).

It’s at about this point in every Windows Phone 7 story that I run into the same question - Windows Phone 7 looks slick but why would I abandon the iOS or Android features and ecosystem? Nokia adds a few extra apps and services to sweeten the WP7 deal, although you’ll find similar offerings on some Android devices. The Lumia 710 and 800 come with Nokia Drive and Maps pre-installed, not just trials but full versions with free map updates. You’ve also got Nokia Music for purchasing music plus Microsoft’s ZunePass subscription music service. Along with this you’ll find tight integration with other Microsoft apps and services such as ZunePass, Xbox Live, Windows Live (Hotmail), Office, Office 365, Sharepoint and SkyDrive.

Individually none of these are likely to lure people away from their current smartphone platform, but combined they make the strong foundation on which to build. It also seems the new third-party apps and services are coming to WP7 faster than they came to Android, but you’re still going to feel like a second class citizen for a while as the other platforms take priority (a pain early Android adopters remember all to well).

This is obviously only a first look and quick hands on rather than a comprehensive review, but I liked what I saw. If you’ve been eyeing off Windows Phone 7 then Nokia’s new Lumias could be what you’ve been waiting for.